This invention relates to automotive climatic control systems and more particularly concerns a method and apparatus for adaptively controlling a multi-zone climate control system as a function of the presence of vehicle occupants and/or the prior manual override history of an occupant.
Electronic climate control systems for motor vehicles typically include one or more zones controllable by adjusting the temperature of air flowing into each zone and even the rate of air flow in accordance with the temperature or comfort set points which are set by occupants of each zone and set climate conditions in each zone. Other factors such as an outside temperature and sun load which are important to occupant comfort are measured and included in a control algorithm which determines adjustments to temperature and air flow.
Multi-zone heating ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems, the zone outputs typically controlled to achieve the settings made by previous occupants. In other words, upon engine start-up, the settings of the prior vehicle occupants govern the climate control system output for each zone. On occasion, this may be counterproductive in that the prior settings may be requiring the climate control system to, for example, heat the respective zone when cooling is desired instead. In addition, if a zone is unoccupied, the control settings for that zone may have a detrimental influence on the comfort level of the occupants in the occupied zones. This typically necessitates the driver and/or other occupants having to adjust the control settings for the unoccupied zones or shut off the controls for the unoccupied zones. Thus, there exists a need for a multi-zone automotive climate control system having adaptive zone control as a function of vehicle seat occupancy.
Current automotive climate control systems having automatic temperature control provide manual overrides in the event that the program control algorithm does not provide optimal comfort for the occupant. For example, for a given detected sun load, conventional automatic temperature control algorithm modify the temperature output of the climate control system to adjust for the sun load as a function of a sun load compensation coefficient. If the vehicle occupant was unsatisfied with the output modification, a manual override would result. Consistent manual overrides of the automatic temperature control system, however, can result in a dissatisfaction with the general automatic temperature control feature. Thus, there exists a need for an automotive climate control system having automatic temperature control with adaptive learning to address consistent occupant overrides of the automatic temperature control algorithm.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an improved multi-zone automotive climate control system. Another object of the present invention is to provide an automotive climate control system having improved automatic temperature control. According to the present invention, the foregoing and other objects and advantages are obtained by a multi-zone climate control system for a vehicle. The system comprises a passenger seat occupancy detector at each of a plurality of passenger seats for generating a respective seat occupancy signal indicative of an occupancy condition of a respective seat. The system also includes a plurality of control units, wherein each of the control units is associated with a respective passenger seat location. The control units are used for selecting desired climate settings for each passenger location. A controller is in operative communication with each control unit and each passenger seat occupancy detector. The controller is operative to control the climate at each occupied passenger location according to the desired climate settings for the respective passenger location and modify the climate at each unoccupied passenger location to optimize the comfort at each occupied passenger location.
In another aspect of the invention, when a respective control unit is operating in an automatic climate control mode, the controller detects any manual overrides of the automatic mode parameter settings. Upon the detection of such a manual override, the controller stores the associated transient thermal condition event associated with the manual override input. For example, the sun load change which caused the occupant to override the automatic climate control system. The controller is further operative to adaptively modify an automatic mode compensation coefficient in response to the manual override input as a function of said transient thermal condition event and the manual override. In this way, upon the occurrence of a similar transient thermal condition event, the corresponding compensation coefficient will have been modified thereby reducing the likelihood that a manual override of the climate control parameters will be necessary by the respective occupant.
Other objects and advantages of the invention will become apparent upon reading the following detailed description and appended claims, and upon reference to the accompanying drawings.